5.  The applicant was born in 1948 and lives in Szeged.
6.  On 8 June 2000 the applicant, an adherent of the religious denomination Hit Gyülekezete (Congregation of the Faith), divorced from his wife, and their son, born in 1994, was placed with the mother. The applicant was granted access rights.
7.  The applicant lodged a motion with the Szeged District Court to reclaim custody or have his access rights re-regulated. The two psychiatric opinions prepared in the course of the ensuing proceedings established that the father’s visits did not impose a burden on the child and suggested loose but regular contact between the applicant and his son. Nonetheless, the court rejected his request on 13 October 2003. Another similar motion of the applicant was also dismissed on 20 June 2004 by the same court, which stated that the child’s removal from his social environment would not be in his interest and that the applicant’s circumstances were not satisfactory for the upbringing of a child. Nonetheless, the court found that the applicant’s behaviour was not malicious towards his son and his access rights should not be withdrawn, as requested by the mother, on the ground of his religious devotion.
8.  On 11 January 2006 the Szeged Guardianship Authority filed an action to have the child placed with his older brother, the mother having been considered unfit. In respect of a potential placement with the applicant, the Authority had regard to its observations that his heavy-handed proselytism vis-à-vis the son and his inadequate housing conditions represented a danger for the boy.
9.  The Szeged District Court appointed an expert psychologist. In his opinion of 5 September 2006 the expert found, having examined the applicant, the mother, their son and his older brother, that the boy had strong emotional ties to his siblings and his mother but none to his father. According to the expert, the applicant held unrealistic educational ideas hallmarked by religious fanaticism which rendered him unfit to provide the son with a normal upbringing; indeed, he forced his beliefs on his son to an extent that it resulted in the latter’s alienation from him.
10.  On 12 September 2006 the District Court placed the child with his brother, but maintained the applicant’s access rights. This decision was upheld by the Csongrád County Regional Court, acting as a second-instance court, on 2 October 2006.
11.  Subsequently the brother filed an action against the applicant seeking deprivation of his access rights.
12.  The District Court appointed an expert psychologist. In his opinion of 14 September 2007 the expert submitted, after examining the brother and the son – but not the applicant –, that the applicant’s participation in the boy’s life was harmful, notably because of his insistence on proselytism. He was of the view that the applicant was unfit to contribute to the son’s normal development and that the applicant should be subjected to examination by an expert psychiatrist. He suggested that the applicant’s access rights should be removed altogether, because his visits – which went beyond the authorised occasions – were of a vexatious nature and harmful for the child.
13.  The District Court then gave judgment and removed the applicant’s access rights altogether. Relying essentially on the expert’s opinion, it held that his vexatious and harmful appearances in his son’s life amounted to an abuse of his access rights and seriously endangered the child’s development and upbringing.
14.  On appeal, on 4 February 2008 the Csongrád County Regional Court upheld the first-instance judgment. It held that even considering the acknowledged mutual interest of the child and his father in maintaining a family tie based on affection, this consideration was not applicable in the case, since the applicant abused his rights to influence the child in pursuit of his own religious beliefs, which triggered anxiety and fear in the boy and endangered his development. In particular, the Regional Court found, relying on the expert opinion, that the applicant’s “irrational worldview made him incapable of bringing up his child” and that he “did not exercise his right of access in accordance with its purpose ... but to impose his religious convictions on the child”.